Posted on
05.20.98 by Widge @ 7:04 pm 
Written by: Dean Devlin & Roland Emmerich, based on the character owned by the Toho Company My Advice: Wait for MST3K It seemed like the match made in heaven, right? D&E, the men behind ID4, take on the king of all monsters in a cage match where the cage is Manhattan, yes? What could possibly go wrong? You name it. What need is there for a synopsis, really--I mean it is a Godzilla flick, right? Well, I won't spoil anything that the newspapers and other reviewers haven't by telling you that the G-Man is a G-It and can lay eggs and proceeds to do so. So you got Godzilla Babies coming to the Saturday Morning LineupTM anyday now. Let's talk about the cast, all great talent--at least in other films they've done. Broderick must have figured he was in cash cow, um, cash lizard heaven, because his performance lacked any redeeming qualities. Instead he seemed to revert to Ferris, forgetting that he's proven his worth with films like Glory. Jean Reno is the only one to leave this flick without egg on his face, doing such a great tough guy (complete with Elvis impersonation) that Warner Bros. has him in the Batsuit for the next chapter of that particular franchise. Maria Pitillo's character is so pitifully helpless and annoying that I was praying for her to die ten minutes after meeting her. Hank Azaria does fairly well with his New York cameraman bit, but it's almost a one-note for this guy. Harry Shearer's sleazy newsman is delightfully bad, but hey, he wants to sleep with Pitillo's character so I wanted him to die too. Categorized as: Movies and Reviews
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Posted on
05.09.98 by Widge @ 1:20 am 
Written by: Bruce Joel Rubin & Michael Tolkin My Advice: Matinee. Still waiting for a film to satisfy the way you thought it ought to have? Yeah, me too. This was my number one film to look forward to this year, but alas. Synopsis: Big rock heading toward earth. Death. Destruction. Dogs and cats, etc. So let's talk about what the film does have going for it. First and foremost, it has Bruce Joel Rubin, the man who brought us Jacob's Ladder, a Needcoffee.com classic. It's he and Tolkin that are responsible for pushing this over the top and making it a slightly above average film. It's the concept more than anything else--the idea of humanity trying to deal with its own extinction, and the choices that must be made, sometimes in a matter of seconds, that decide the fate of sometimes just a family, sometimes millions of people. Unfortunately, I smell cutting and rewrites that crippled what could have been a great film. Categorized as: Movies and Reviews
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Posted on
04.25.98 by Widge @ 3:58 am 
Written & Directed by: James Toback My Advice: Wait for MST3K This proves that even at 84 minutes, a feature film can be too long. The premise is the film's title, except that the first two characters didn't know about each other prior to the film's start, since they were sharing said guy. What starts off looking like a very interesting piece where you get a small number of actors in an enclosed place and let them act their asses off (for proper reference see Closet Land, see Mindwalk) turns into an episode of The Real World. If Toback wants to have really great actors improvising emotional situations, somebody show him Secrets & Lies. A word about Downey--if the boy could ever get his personal shit together, he'd be the actor of his generation. He's a Needcoffee favorite but sometimes I just wanna strangle him. Enough of that. When he's alone (accusing himself in a mirror or talking to his agent) we get a great performance from him. However, once the two women come into the scene it's over. Then it's all screaming matches, thrownaway lines, the whole bit. Categorized as: Movies and Reviews
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Posted on
04.24.98 by Widge @ 11:44 pm 
Written by: Ben Ramsey My Advice: Wait and rent it. In a word: "John Woo's Grosse Pointe Blank." Too simplistic? Perhaps, but this is actually a very enjoyable film for the reason that it doesn't take itself very seriously, even when the bullets are flying. Wahlberg is a hard-working hitman who is deadlier than E. coli on the job but goes home to Maalox moments with his fiancee (Applegate) and lady-on-the-side (Lela Rochon). Wahlberg plays both sides of his character, Marvin, very well: the killer and the whipped homebody. He wants everyone to like him, for pity's sake, and you end up liking him despite the fact he's a major weanie. Categorized as: Movies and Reviews
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Posted on
12.16.97 by Widge @ 8:25 pm  
Written and Directed by: James Cameron My Advice: Don't Miss It. To take the space to try to convey to you all of the things that Cameron did right with this film would basically wipe out my alloted server storage. I could tell you about the incredible editing job that moves you from one time period to another with eerie seamlessness. I could tell you about the cunning way Cameron introduces you to the tragedy and then makes you watch it unfold, step by step. I could tell you about all the different things that the ship is going to be declared to represent in the next few weeks. But I won't. I'll tell you instead that it's brilliant. It's the best Cameron I've seen. The acting is superbly done. DiCaprio and Winslet are two of the most solid young actors we have around, and their relationship was so natural it was scary. Even the normal places where the film might go wrong--the frame story, the fact you know the ending, the sheer schmaltz of trying to show humanity at its lowest and highest--it all works. Do yourself a favor and see on the big screen in a theatre with a great sound system. That about sums it up. Categorized as: Movies and Reviews
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